


Seraphinite

by maya_brainstormed (mayachain)



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Complicated Relationships, Friendship/Love, Gen, Healing, Power of Love, Snippets, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25941469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/maya_brainstormed
Summary: This is how Batman survives, in the beginning. He survives because he loves Alfred and Alfred loves him. This is how Dick survives any number of injuries both at the circus and after Bruce takes him in. Jason. Later, Tim. Steph. Cass. And Damian.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	Seraphinite

**Seraphinite**

They say it has been this way since time began: People who love each other can each heal the other and others around them if they touch and are determined. And it’s not romantic love that is required; parental love, familial love, strong friendship works just fine.

This is how Batman survives, in the beginning. He survives because he loves Alfred and Alfred loves him. This is how Dick survives any number of injuries both at the circus and after Bruce takes him in. Jason. Later, Tim. Steph. Cass. And Damian.

\--

There are limitations. The power that suffuses the world cannot heal the dead. Dick’s parents fall and die upon impact, and stay dead, no matter how much Dick and so many among the circus people love them. Little Dick’s shock is relieved the tiniest bit by the love of those around him – four-year-old Tim’s, in the audience, is relieved, also – but all the love in the world cannot bring back the fallen Graysons.

\--

Jason managed to heal his mother more often than he can count. It’s how he knows she loved him. Her love was not enough to help her kick the addiction, but she loved him enough that when he knelt beside her and took her hand and woke her up, she’d look at him and a soft green glow would soothe the horrid atmosphere in their tiny apartment. Catherine would live and fight to stay alive another day. Until one morning, she wouldn’t wake up and nothing twelve-year-old Jason tried would bring her around. You cannot reach the love of someone who is unconscious. He had no one else he could call. 

\--

When Barbara is shot, she lies on the floor of her apartment a long time. It is too late to heal all of the damage by the time she is found. Still: When he comes home, Jim Gordon takes his daughter’s hand and she blinks at him and her spine heals. As much as it can, by then. It heals a little further still when her Robins come to the hospital to visit and Batgirl’s love for them and theirs for her bathes the room green. Once released, Barbara only uses a wheelchair when she is very tired – otherwise, she gets by with a brace and a cane.

\--

When Bruce finds Jason’s body, it is too late. The boy is dead. His son is dead. He will forever castigate himself for not bringing Alfred, because together they might still have had a few precious seconds… but he was there when Dick’s parents died; in his heart of hearts he knows it wouldn’t have made a difference. (His mother was shot, his father was yelling and falling to his knees beside her; she was bleeding out, unconscious, but his father was there and so was Bruce; Bruce couldn’t _move_ \- and then there was another shot, and Bruce was alone, and nothing he tried would ever work again –)

\--

Bruce never tries to heal Tim when he is Robin, never lets Tim reach for him to heal Batman’s injuries. He tells himself that Tim understands, and Tim does – he is used to parental figures never producing a green glow anyway. It is Dick and Alfred, Dick and Cass, Dick and Alfred and Cass and Tim who heal Tim while he is Robin, who hold hands whenever necessary and heal Batman. Batman can’t. Batman has lost his heart. Batman’s ability to reach Bruce Wayne’s healing power died when he lost Jason.

\--

(Except -

Stephanie is Robin, and Stephanie is fired, and Stephanie is tortured for hours by Black Mask – Stephanie is going to die, and she asks Bruce if she ever even did any good as Robin at all, and Bruce – Bruce can’t, he can’t go through this again, he touches his gloveless hand to his Robin’s cheek and this time his dying Robin is still looking at him – 

The alley glows green.)

\--

When Bruce “dies” there is no body, so there is nothing for his family to even try and heal. (Except he is not dead, he is lost in time and Tim will prove it and bring him back, stop trying to ‘heal’ me, I’m not insane, Dick –) Tim loses his spleen and almost his life because he is far away from home, alone.

\--

The color of healing is green. Lazarus Pits are green too. Unlike the healing power, which is natural to this world, the unnatural Lazarus Pits can bring back the dead. They are a perversion. Hence the rage.

When Cass emerges from the Pit, she is surrounded by family almost immediately. There is an urge in her to fight, fight, fight, _kill_ , but she never wanted it, never in her first life, and here is her brother – 

\--

When Jason returns to Gotham: With his anger at Bruce and Bruce’s mental block against healing, no one even tries to get the two of them to do anything about Jason’s madness. Dick tries, but it doesn’t work – either it’s Jason who doesn’t love Dick any more or it’s Dick who cannot quite bring himself to love Jason as he is now. Neither can decide which it is.

Dick is nothing if not determined. He knows that trying to bring Robin into it would be a lost cause, but - “Alfred,” he says to Jason, and Jason cannot find a single argument against that, and so Jason is brought to Alfred and there is a green glow that cannot heal everything, too much time has passed for that, but it helps. Compared with some multiverse counterparts he later meets, it helps a lot.

\--

(Damian – Damian learns how to love and be loved from Richard, gradually learns to tolerate Cain and Brown and Todd, yet cannot abide Drake because Tim stood in the way of _everything_ as per his mother’s conditioning –

and then his mother declares him unworthy and sends an army and the Heretic to eliminate the ‘mistake’ she made, and Damian is bleeding out and Richard is unconscious and cannot help him. He’s about to slip away when someone says “Damian!” and grabs his chin –

and he stares up at Drake with wide, panicked eyes and cannot even muster the strength to grab his arm –

but Drake’s hand is cradling his chin, and the grip is tightening, and Drake is here, he is not alone, and the green glow that rises up around them should be a surprise but isn’t. When it fades, Damian’s injuries are healed. Richard’s injuries are healed. The cut that Timothy had on his face is healed.)

\--

In every war that humans have fought, there have been attempts to disrupt the healing. Always, there have been stories of the power of camaraderie, of friendship, of love, helping soldiers and civilians alike survive. 

Weapons and criminals and starvation and common illness have killed billions over the years. Thousands have been murdered within Gotham. Yet love prevails. 

They say it has been this way since time began.

.


End file.
